Health promotion at the workplace : Promoting health by embracing the concept of corporate social responsibility

Abstract: The main issues, which arise in that research project, are connected with health dimensions. There are emphasised points, which contribute to the employees’ health and well-being, solutions, which organisations implement to prevent workers from diseases and illnesses, to track their current condition of body and mind and generally to improve their overall health situation. From the very beginning the main stress was supposed to lie on physical activity promotion being an integral part of health promotion at the workplace but the obtained information from the conducted interviews verified that idea. The research also touches other variables contributing to the employees’ health and cons tituting the idea of health promotion at the workplace, namely health profiles and Corporate Social Responsibility. It is argued who may benefit from workplace physical activities and to which extent such programs may succeed. Interviews showed double points of views according to the necessity to encourage employees to train within the organization. Basis for the discussion of the topic were interviews gained from the interaction with the staff of the organization Xylem located in Sweden in Emmaboda, a world leader in water solutions. The chosen methodology based on the case study appeared to be the most relevant to explore health issues thanks to the clear empirical example. The company was distinguished because of the sport and rehabilitation centre, which it had in its possession and which seemed to make Xylem be different from the competitors and gave advantages for the employees in the form of additional benefits causing going in for sport at the company’s expense. The results of the research indicate that health promotion at the workplace may be viewed as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility. The evidences for IV that perspective are presented with a proper motivation mostly in the conclusion part. The research intended to show to the readers to what extent health promotion at the workplace incorporating physical activities, health profiles and CSR is important, how it is regarded and how much attention, time and efforts is and should be devoted to deal with that dimension in a proper way.